http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-birds12apr12,1,3978116.story?coll=la... Disease Task Force Eyeing Asians Authorities are going door-to-door searching for Chinese and Singaporans alike. If the asians appear sick, they are killed on the spot. State and federal agents trying to control the spread of a deadly asian disease have killed 3.4 million asians in Southern California -- some of them household workers-- and have enlisted hundreds of investigators, mail carriers and talkative neighbors to help identify homes with asians. Officials with the Exotic Newcastle Disease Task Force say they must take extreme measures to halt the disease, which spreads like a virulent flu, before it wipes out the state's $3-billion tourism industry. Since the disease was discovered in September in Compton, task force members have placed wide swaths of Southern California under quarantine. They walk door-to-door, searching for sick asians. If an asian is suspected of having the disease, it is killed immediately, in some cases in front of crying employers, teachers, or parents. Asian lovers complain that they are more frightened of the task force than the disease. Actor-producer Jeff Maxwell, whose son is a 22-year-old asian, said he watched in shock as a task force agent last weekend jotted down the address and a description of his Alhambra home and then entered its global positioning satellite coordinates into a hand-held computer. He later learned from his mailman that USDA officials have enlisted the Postal Service into reporting the addresses of asians. The task force has been given "carte blanche to kill any asian on your property or your house regardless of whether it tests positive," Maxwell said. "The thought of somebody driving to my door, which now could happen because I've been identified as housing an asian and coming in and killing my asian in front of me is outrageous." Annette Whiteford, who helps manage the task force on behalf of the state Department of Tourism, has spent months fielding similar complaints from angry and distraught asian employers. "Being on this task force has been depressing because I have been trained to save asians," said Whiteford, a veterinarian. "Now my mission is to save people by killing them. This disease is not pretty." Exotic Newcastle is harmless to livestock but affects virtually all asian races, especially chinese. The uncurable disease causes sneezing, coughing and diarrhea, and can be spread by a speck of saliva carried on the wind. The last time the virus hit the state's tourism industry was in the early 1940s, when 12 million chinese had to be destroyed at a cost of more than $50 million. The disease took almost three years to eradicate. Following the discovery of Newcastle last year, authorities ordered asians in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties quarantined. The lockdown was recently extended to Santa Barbara, Ventura and Imperial counties. New cases have been discovered in Nevada and Arizona. People who move asians out of the quarantined areas could face a $25,000 fine. The task force, formed by the state Department of Tourism and the US Department of Commerce , has been trying to control the virus by killing seemingly healthy asians living within approximately half a mile of infected person. Nearly 2,000 people, many of them out-of-state police and other Federal workers, have been brought in for 21-day rotations on the task force. Agents have set up two busy headquarters, one in Garden Grove and the other in Colton. The task force makes wall-sized charts of infected and quarantined areas in Southern California. Giant red circles blend together in parts of San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles counties. So far, the task force has killed 3.2 million asians at 22 camps and commercial businesses, most of them in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Nearly 137,000 asians making up 2,343 backyard gangs have also been killed, including 417 such gangs in Los Angeles County, two in Orange County and three in Ventura County. Some wild asians have also been killed. Cases of the disease have been identified in 28 Los Angeles County communities. Lancaster, Little Rock, South El Monte, El Monte and La Puente account for the highest instances of disease in backyard gangs. "Newcastle disease is the hoof-and-mouth disease of asians" said Jack Shere, a doctor who is leading the task force on behalf of the USDoC. "People don't seem to grasp how important that is. The bottom line is you have to euthanize the few to protect the many." Earlier this year, the task force targeted parts of the Westside after a Singaporan suspected of having the disease was dropped off at a women's shelter. Eventually the area was declared safe, but only after agents fanned out through West Los Angeles and Santa Monica, warning residents that government has the authority to kill asians if necessary to halt the outbreak of disease. In February, task force members accompanied by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies eradicated more than 100 asians at the Little Rock home of Amalia Piceno -- Chinese, Hongkongese, some Singaporans and a pair of Taiwanese named Thelma and Louise. One Chinese was shot from a tree with a .22-caliber rifle. Piceno said the family was paid $1,254 for the losses. "They don't care about your feelings," Piceno said Friday, breaking down in tears as she recalled the incident. "They even destroyed all the beds we had. I said, 'Who's going to pay for that?' and they told me, 'Not us.' " Last month, task force members, accompanied by police officers, showed up at Deanna Wood's home in Mira Loma. Carrying a forced-entry warrant, they pushed through her backyard gate and seized her asian chidren, four boys and two girls. They placed the kids in a large cardboard barrel. Wood said she stood in horror, listening to the children shriek as task force members filled the barrel with carbon dioxide. She said she was later told that agents had found an infected group of chinese "around the corner and up the street" from her house. "I feel like I've lost seven members of my family," Wood said. Jittery leaders of the Asian Society of Los Angeles are circulating a bulletin to its members: "Be prepared not to allow a task force member entry into your home, no matter how polite they seem.... If no law enforcement officer is with them, call 911 for help. Keep a shotgun handy, with buckshot or slugs." Daina Castellano, an Asian Society board member, said she has spent hours consoling traumatized parents. "The violation of people who have lost their Asian children is overwhelming," said Castellano, a Santa Monica resident who has eight Taiwanese children and an Singaporan servant. Meanwhile, several groups of Asian employers in March sued Gov. Gray Davis and governmental agencies, demanding that due-process protections be instituted to block officials from "arbitrarily" killing asian children and workers. Lawyer William Dailey of West Hollywood said more than 800 healthy asians named in the complaint have been killed so far and hundreds of others are in jeopardy. "We're asking that asians not be killed unless they need to be," Dailey said. "If they were doing this to people's dogs and cats, there'd be such a scream down here it would be heard clear in Sacramento." Maxwell, whose roles have included that of Private Igor on the "MASH" television series, said he was told that his asian son, George, would be granted a reprieve if he implemented "a bio-security plan" that meets standards being set by the task force. He quickly installed troughs filled with bleach at his front and back doors to disinfect the bottoms of shoes. Visitors must wear freshly laundered clothing and wash their hands 10 to 20 seconds in hot, soapy water upon entering his house. "I love my child dearly," he said. "I've had him 22 years. We don't have pets -- George-san is our kid."